They expected tension; what they didn't expect was to serve out their year-long deployment as, essentially, the world's most targeted grocery store security.
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07/02/09
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The War Tapes (2006)
98 %
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Reviews Counted: 63
Fresh: 62
Rotten:1
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Consensus: Candid, eye-opening footage gives viewers a close-up -- and educational -- look at the experiences of American soldiers in Iraq, a viewpoint not normally seen.
Theatrical Release:Jun 2, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: Straight from the front lines in Iraq, THE WAR TAPES is the first war movie filmed by soldiers themselves. Funnier, spicier, and more gut wrenching than news reports, this is Operation Iraqi... [More]
Director: Deborah Scranton
Reviews for The War Tapes
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04/23/09
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08/07/08
The director has managed to shape real people's lives into a drama, without imposing ideological filters, and without sacrificing what makes them real.
02/01/08
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05/24/07
Gripping, boring, disturbing, amusing, enlightening and frustrating.
02/22/07
This is an important film, but be prepared for shocks.
10/20/06
A scary diary of their increasingly dehumanized daily lives (mostly spent protecting supply convoys on the dangerous highways) and the movie evokes the futile larger war around them in a series of haunting images.
10/19/06
What's here speaks for itself, and what it says is often surprising and deeply unsettling, regardless of one's political leanings.
10/15/06
The direct-cinema authenticity that a soldier's eye gives to this largely street-fought war...lends The War Tapes its primary strength.
10/14/06
Informative as most of the partisan-produced, anti-war documentaries that we've seen in the last several years have been, none match this one for its wide-ranging scope and lived-it-at-ground-zero truth.
10/13/06
...it would make a great double bill with the recent My Country, My Country, which looks at things from the other side.
10/12/06
Arguably the most vital and eye-opening documentary yet made regarding the United States' current military entanglement.
10/12/06
Top CriticThe film succeeds because of its refreshingly low-key emotional approach and its refusal to impose character arcs or political agendas on its subjects' footage.
10/12/06
Universally Worthwhile -- not just as a documentary on this war. But as a documentary on this war, I think it's quite interestingly balanced.
10/12/06
A painfully intimate snapshot of who they are, the damage they inflict on an unseen enemy and what they endure while doing so, in all its absurd, dehumanizing and ennobling contradictions.
10/05/06
As raw and disturbing as it is wry and satirical, the resulting portrait is a powerfully unique film that goes beyond commenting on Operation Iraqi Freedom to become a provocative meditation on war itself.
09/30/06
The edited footage has an intensity and immediacy you won't find on cable news networks.
09/29/06
The film is one of the most urgent and immediate nonfiction works we may ever see.
09/22/06
Top CriticThe apolitical film serves us well for its candor.
09/21/06
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